Highlight
Energy IGERTs at Rutgers Create a New Multi-university, Interdisciplinary Course
Achievement/Results
The Renewable and Sustainable Fuels Solutions IGERT (PI = Eric Lam) in cooperation with the Nanotechnology for Clean Energy IGERT (PI = Manish Chhowalla), both based at Rutgers University, have jointly created a new multi-university and interdisciplinary pilot graduate course: Integrated Energy Challenges and Opportunities. This seminar course is designed to afford a research-level view of the “energy landscape” to graduate students pursuing energy-related research in diverse disciplines and graduate programs.
The course was collaboratively taught by faculty from both Rutgers and Princeton Universities. Graduate Trainees from both IGERTs participated in the class as well as non-IGERT students. Faculty and students were affiliated with the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Princeton, and the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. The course was fully enrolled by graduate students from nine participating programs including chemistry, mechanical engineering, plant biology and economics among others.
Class topics included:
- Systems thinking in energy policy
- Energy economics and policy
- Power plants, power devices and grid
- Algal/microbial systems for biofuels generation
- Carbon capture and sequestration
- Synfuel engineering
- Genetic engineering for cellulosic ethanol
- Ecological impacts and land use
- Biomimetics and solar energy
- Solar energy and photovoltaics
- Fuel cells
- Energy storage and batteries
- New energy materials and nanotechnology
Two of the classes were delivered remotely by videoconference adding an international component to the seminar course. Professor Manish Chhowalla, PI of the Nanotechnology for Clean Energy IGERT, lectured on “nanomaterials for energy” from Imperial College, London. Professor Diane Hildebrandt and colleagues from the Centre of Materials and Process Synthesis (COMPS), University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, a partner of the Sustainable Fuels IGERT, discussed Fischer-Tropsh and synfuels processes using biomass feedstocks.
This pilot course will become one of the required integrative courses for all incoming IGERT Trainees in both IGERT programs and will continue to be open as well to non-IGERT graduate students and selected upper level undergraduates. Pre-and post-class assessments and longitudinal tracking are being implemented to track student perceptions and outcomes and to help shape the evolution of the course.
Address Goals
This seminar course is designed to afford a research-level view of the “energy” landscape to graduate students pursuing energy-related research in diverse disciplines and graduate programs. It fosters the NSF’s Learning goals because it contributes directly to Trainees’ scientific literacy in fields beyond their home field of study and thence to their future ability to disseminate information about critical issues in sustainable energy. This applies not only to formal and informal educational settings in which Trainees will find themselves in their professional careers but also to the Trainees’ effectiveness in communicating about science and technology outside of the workplace, e.g. in discussions with neighbors, family; advocacy and advising with elected officials and policy makers, etc. The course also supports the NSF’s Discovery goal by expanding the worldview that each Trainee takes back to inform his/her research and by providing an expanded network of potential colleagues, collaborators,and consultants, i.e. the classmates and presenting faculty drawn from a broad range of disciplines and research specializations.
